29

no longer a strapping young lad?

sometimes when i’m at parties i’ll run into someone i haven’t seen in a while and experience dread when the inevitable “so… what’s new with you?” question gets asked. embedded in the question is this latent expectation of novelty. the question relies on some newness to kick-start an avenue of conversation. if i answer the question with “not much, just the same old — how about you?”, i can see the person’s face deflate a bit as they realize that the onus is now on them to provide this newness.

i often try to provide something interesting— i can’t be a boring person! i’ll wax poetic about some book i’ve read or some idea that’s captured my attention, recount a story from a recent trip, or fill them in on some juicy gossip in my personal life. the past six months have made it incredibly easy to answer this question as I simply respond back with “new job, new girl”. my sense is that neither of these will change any time soon (the latter hopefully never).

it’s terribly cliche yet undoubtedly true that your 20s are for exploration and self-discovery. it’s an exhilarating yet uncertain time. the future looks out at you in its unbounded scope, any conceivable option a possibility. your imagination can run wild forecasting who you might become. so you do some sampling. where to live, what to work on, the friends you keep, the ideologies you hold dear.

in 2021, i quit my job to take a sabbatical. i spent six months backpacking and developing a spiritual practice. around the same time i left, a coworker of mine also quit. she was plagued by similar questions about the type of life she was destined to live. it’s funny reflecting back on her as a foil — she’s now a medicine woman who runs retreats in tulum while i’m still living in nyc working a finance job at a tech startup. no normative declaration here about what one ought to do, but an acknowledgement on how a similar path of inquiry can manifest itself in wildly different endpoints.

as my 30s approach, i’m starting to feel settled in. by no means have i answered the big questions (nor do i ever expect to), but i’m converging upon a system and way of being that seems ok. little by little the puzzle pieces are coming together. some of them in ways that are entirely predictable, and others that surprise me. the puzzle has no beginning, middle, or end. the magic is in the amalgamation; the satisfaction stems from the moments where the pieces connect, releasing the built up potential energy.

i once knew a girl who told me that every year on her birthday, she would go sit on her favorite bench by the east river and have herself a long cry. after a certain age, her birthday was a reminder of her mortality and an acknowledgement that her looks were fading. i’ve had a few birthdays in the past that have taken on a similar flavor of melancholy. a resonant discomfort about being a mature adult, having a body that’s breaking down, mourning the loss of childish play.

so i threw a birthday party this year for the first time as an adult. having a big birthday never appealed to me; i always felt a level of latent discomfort from all the attention. like please don’t look at me or wish me or make a big deal it’s just an arbitrary day!

what i’ve realized now is it’s an excuse to get all the people you love in a room together. when else apart from my wedding will i have 50 of my friends all in the same place? two nights ago i got to spend time with people who’ve known me from since i was a kid to those i only got close to a few months ago.

we are merely a tapestry of the people we know and spend time with. in the book normal people, the protagonist marianne realizes that

"no one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not.”

like mirrors reflecting off each other to produce a gorgeous kaleidoscope, the interdependence creates a reflection that eclipses the individual. there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing two of your friends from disparate worlds hit it off. like puzzle pieces clicking.

much of why i live is to love. here’s to many more years of it.